Bombshell by Phyllis DeMarco Page B

here once the sun sets.”
    “Oh, I won’t be five minutes behind you.”
    “You sure? I just—there ain’t no tellin’ about some of the folks workin’ here.”
    “I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “My car’s right out back, and it won’t take me ten minutes to get back to the Inn.”
    Earl reluctantly nodded his head. “Well, I suppose I have to be satisfied with that. See you tomorrow, ma’am. And thank you. For everything.”
    “Hard as you and Molly work, I ought to be thanking you.”
    “You pay good money,” he told her. “This’ll go a long way to gettin’ our farm back.”
    Annalee studied the big man for a long moment and marveled at how well he’d cleaned up his act. Earl Brown was no longer the monstrous ruffian she met on her first day in town. Instead, a little sobriety and a lot of hard work had brought out the gentleman in him.
    The notion that she may have had something to do with his transformation humbled her once-proud heart. Humility was something foreign to Annalee Harrison; it was not her strong suit. “Go home, Earl. All this gratitude is making me nervous.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Dusk fell quickly, as did the silence once Earl and Molly went home for the night. Annalee put into her purse what money remained, locked the front door, and headed out to her car.
    It had been a good day. Aside from the run-in with the nasty hobo, a good number of men made it through the day and worked hard to earn their pay, and the Blue Lantern looked better already. Tomorrow they would finish pulling the weeds and overgrowth, and maybe there would even be time to see this doctor Molly had mentioned, this Doc Graham who supposedly was so wonderful—
    “Any money left for me now?” The voice was gruff and terrible, and as the man lit something that approximated a cigarette, the light from his match illuminated a set of cold, calculating eyes. “Or how ’bout some food? I was just a little hungry—you didn’t need to be a bitch about it.”
    Annalee froze dead in her tracks. The fresh, sudden terror brought a lump of bile to the back of her throat. “You stay away from me.”
    His approach was slow, those terrible eyes intent on doing the worst sort of harm. He wedged himself between her and the Roadster and grinned. “Yeah? Or what? I don’t see any big man around to protect you now.”
    “I mean it! Get away from me!”
    The man took powerful hold of her arms and pushed her back against the car. He was short and wiry but strong, much stronger than Annalee could have imagined. Beating him in the face with her purse did nothing but make him mad. His heavy breath came out in nauseating grunts; the rank smell of it hung in the air and permeated her skin, and she wanted to cry, to scream for help, or maybe even to push him away, but once those dirty hands got hold of her, they would not let go.
    What happened next passed as fast as a bolt of lightning, for one second the horrible man was grinding himself into her...and the next, he was on his back with a shattered jaw and a shotgun jammed in his face.
    Annalee might have screamed if the shock hadn’t numbed her, or if the urge to vomit hadn’t been so overwhelming. The most she could do was let out a sob and wonder what had just happened.
    “You all right, Annalee?”
    John. Dear, sweet John. She would know that soft voice anywhere. “H-he came here this morning.”
    “Earl pulled me over and told me,” Calaway said. “Said he had a nervous feelin’ in his gut about this fella.”
    The injured hobo writhed in pain. His cries earned him a boot to the stomach before Sheriff Calaway cocked the shotgun. “Move again, you sick sumbitch—”
    A second squad car rolled up to the café, its single cherry bulb flashing in the night. Calvin Stamp and a tall deputy bolted from the car.
    “The hell?”
    “Thought he’d try his hand at roughin’ up a defenseless woman,” Calaway growled. “I can’t reach my cuffs, Calvin.”
    “I got